Author: Daniel Ricwulf

Once upon a time, The Powerwolf was cursed to wander this mortal realm in the body of a mere man. Seeking to reclaim the glory of his prior form, he began to live vicariously through the movies. After a half decade of gigs in post-production, he moved on to his true love... telling everybody his opinions. He now does this on Screen Rant and his blog.
The Powerwolf is happily married to a hot chick who draws his stories for him, edits his rants, and otherwise keeps him from going off the deep end.
In his mortal form, The Powerwolf is often referred to as Daniel Ricwulf.

If you read no further in this review, please take away this. You need to watch Stranger Things, and you need to watch it now. Go home now and binge the eight-episode Netflix original. Not because the story does anything new. It doesn’t. If you’ve seen, Jaws, E.T., The Goonies, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Poltergeist, Scanners, The Thing, Alien, The Twilight Zone, or The X-Files, you’re going to recognize some of the moments, concepts, tropes, themes, and iconography that made those properties so famous. The reason you need to see…

The level of vitriol that has been directed towards the lady-led Ghostbusters reboot is beyond the pale. Over at my day job at Screen Rant, every Ghostbusters related news update is met by at least a few comments telling us we shouldn’t even be reporting on it. As if, like the mainstream media’s coverage of Donald Trump, we are treating a great evil in the world as normal, and should really just stop giving it attention. Hilarious, considering the “controversy” they are stirring is turning the reboot of a comedy…

The BFG comes to us courtesy of Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment and Disney. The film is every bit as full of whimsy that a pairing between these two would suggest. Based on the novel by Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), the film follows a 10-year-old orphan named Sophie, who gets kidnapped by an otherwise Big and Friendly Giant, and finds herself with problems altogether unfamiliar to those from her previous life. Let’s focus on the good first. The acting in this movie is delightful. Ruby Barnhill, whose name…

This is the fourth and final (for now) week of The Powerwolf’s Beginner’s Guide to the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) and friends. PART 1 started with Captain America in WWII. PART 2 saw a world of heroes step into the limelight. PART 3 focused on the escalation of conflict now that superheroes have been revealed. PART 4 will take us right up to this year’s Captain America: Civil War. Things have hit a fever pitch. Superweirdos are falling out of the woodwork and the world is more concerned than ever. Something big is building, and for our heroes, things are about to go from bad to worse. You know what that means. More awesome movies for us!

Swiss Army Man is storytelling at its finest. It’s immature, gross, insecure, ridiculous, and deeply, deeply human. Its profundity doesn’t come in spite of its base nature, but because of it. It explores the shame we have in being dead men walking, and the pretense in imagining that we’re more than a brain/soul/what-have-you piloting a walking, talking, farting meat robot. It’s a weird, meandering, sometimes depressing movie that may turn you off entirely, and you absolutely must see it.

For the past two weeks, The Powerwolf has taken you on a guided tour of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) and its related properties. PART 1 brought us all the way to the modern era of heroes, and PART 2 through the first assemblage of The Avengers, and its immediate aftermath. Now that we live in a world defined by superfolk, things have begun to escalate, and these connections are beginning to mean more than ever before.

Last week we discussed whether or not piracy would be the end of Hollywood. The Powerwolf is pretty sure that Hollywood will survive piracy’s impact on the industry relatively unscathed. But what WILL kill the movies?

Independence Day: Resurgence bears the distinction of being one of the dumbest films I’ve seen that still technically does everything right. There was never any need for a sequel to the eminently 90’s ID4, yet here we are with a film that somehow manages to be even bigger and more explody than dozens of city-wide spaceships annihilating all of the world’s major cities.

Last week we began with PART 1 of our Beginner’s Guide the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) and its related properties. Marvel Studios’ films have a (nearly) flawless continuity. Their brethren? Not so much. But since the X-Men, pre-MCU Spider-Man, and more are vital members of the Marvel family, they are included in this timeline in a slightly less official capacity. My job, as your guide, will be to detail the nature of entries that might make a little less chronological sense, and let you know which Marvel films are worth watching, why… and, most importantly, in what order to make the most of this sprawling narrative.